


Your Hand in Mine

by whetstone



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Illness, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:16:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whetstone/pseuds/whetstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seunghyun loses his memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Hand in Mine

Jiyong had always thought it’d be him.

His chest bumps in a hurried beat, even though the road Daesung takes is paved smooth, winding through hills so blanketed in white they hurt Jiyong’s eyes. He blinks and sinks further into the passenger seat, his head thumping against the window.

“Twenty more minutes,” Daesung says. He touches Jiyong’s knee; the press of fingers against denim makes the beat slow down enough for Jiyong to catch his breath. He fingers the rough edges and smooth sides of his keys, the chains and the trinkets strung through the metal ring dangling on his belt loop. “We’ll be there soon.”

Jiyong waits for the big tree to flash by before he sits up again. He flips the visor down, ignoring the bags under his eyes to push his glasses up his nose. Daesung turns the keys in the ignition and the car dies underneath them, bit by bit. They watch steam fog up the windows before Jiyong tightens the scarf around his neck and Daesung unlocks the doors. Both of them climb out.

“It’s nice out,” Daesung says, and it is. The sky is clear, frost edging the roof of the brick building like icing on a gingerbread house. Their boots crunch against the salt-flecked gravel; Daesung pats his elbow and opens the door for him, pulling off his mittens and sticking them in his coat pocket as they walk inside.  
   
It smells like old books and heated air, the kind that circulates fresh from some big machine outside. Jiyong looks at his reflection in the mirror and ruffles a hand through his hair.

“I’ll go first,” Daesung offers. Jiyong doesn’t turn around. He walks past tables that are mostly empty, past people who smile at him and people who can’t tell if he’s there or not, past people who are waiting and people who don’t have anyone to wait for. Twenty minutes click by on his watch as he sits slumped in a window seat, legs crossed Indian-style. He picks at the stitching on his shoes.

“I like those.”

Jiyong’s heart drops down into his stomach and surges up again. “Thanks,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans.

Someone settles across from him, the shift of blue polyester slacks scraping against the cheap fabric of the seat. “Where did you get them?”

“I bought them,” he says. “At a store.”

“Well, I don’t know where else you’d buy stuff.”

Jiyong cracks a smile at this. “I guess you’re right.”

“My teacher says I’m pretty smart,” and then fingers are tapping against the orange panel of Jiyong’s left sneaker. “I’m Seunghyun.”

 _I know,_ he wants to say, _I know, I know, I know,_ but the doctors say pushing for memories is detrimental to Seunghyun’s mental health, so Jiyong just stares at friendly, empty eyes and swallows the bile rising in his throat. “I’m Jiyong. I’m here to visit you.”

“I know,” he says, licking at chapped lips. “Daesung told me.” Seunghyun points out the window, and Jiyong sees him there, on the phone out in the snow. “He’s visiting me too. It’s nice of you to do that for me.”

Jiyong nods. They’ve cut Seunghyun’s hair again and it makes him look young, strands soft and ungelled, hanging around his face and against his ears. “It’s not a problem.”

Seunghyun turns his attention back to the window, sending him a glance every few minutes. Jiyong knows what this is.

 

_( “I never know what to say,” Seunghyun says, flicking the lighter open for Jiyong’s cigarette. “I don’t know. I don’t like small talk. It makes me feel dumb.” He watches smoke curl from Jiyong’s nose, a smile crinkling his eyes._

_“What?”_

_“Your breath,” he says, “like a dragon’s.” )_

 

“If you want me to go,” Jiyong says, “I can.”

Seunghyun gives him the C.E.O.-ahjumma-annoying DJ-pushy photographer smile and Jiyong wants him to say yes so he can go home, because Seunghyun isn’t here today, not really. This stranger with the same face and the same awkward gait, the same neck and shoulders and cheeks, this isn’t him. Maybe he shouldn’t have come today, not when it’s snowing and Daesung has recording to do and there are rehearsals later and he has to find Chaerin for that –

“This is cool.”

Fingers against his belt loop, pulling. Jiyong fights the urge to sidle in and curl up there. He knows what his reception will be.

“I like this. What is it?”

“It’s a toy.” Jiyong takes his hand and moves it away, unhooking his keys and dropping them into Seunghyun’s outstretched palm.

“You’re too old for toys,” he chides, and Jiyong wishes he could laugh.

“I’m just keeping it,” he says, “for someone else.” He watches him hold it up to the light, turn it this way and that, moving arms and legs until the toy is in a running position.

Seunghyun presses the keys into his hand Bearbrick-first. “That’s nice of you,” he notes approvingly. “You’re a good friend.”

Jiyong looks away as Seunghyun’s eyes travel from his head to his feet. He doesn’t risk a glance over.

“I like this too,” he declares, touching buttons on his jacket, the bracelet hooked around Jiyong’s wrist. “The way you dress.”

Seunghyun had never been touchy, before. It’d always been Jiyong’s job to straighten collars or knot up ties; it was another thing he had to get used to.

“Wanna see something?”

“Sure,” he says, and it’s hard to get words out with how surely Seunghyun grasps his hand. Jiyong squeezes, feeling the familiar press of palm lines.

Seunghyun looks back at him as they walk through the antiseptic-smelling corridors. “Don’t worry,” he says, and he laces their fingers together, another thing he’d never done before. “I won’t let you get lost.”

\---

“These don’t match,” Jiyong says. “The colors.”

“They don’t?” Seunghyun frowns at the canvas set up at the far end of his room. On it is a house with a turquoise front and a red tile roof. The sun is a yellow corner shot through with lines. “I think they look good together.”

“You would,” he mumbles, and Seunghyun frowns. Jiyong holds his breath; the last time he’d slipped up had ended in medication and stern warnings and Youngbae curled around him as he slept, hand fisted in his friend’s shirt.

This time he’s safe, because Seunghyun just frames fingers around the canvas’ edge and tilts his head. “Even if it doesn’t match,” he says, “I like it.” He sits down next to Jiyong. “The colors look good next to each other.”

“I guess they do,” he replies, even though it sort of kills him to lie and not punch at Seunghyun’s shoulder and laugh. “I like to draw too,” he offers instead.

“Really?” Seunghyun’s voice cracks with surprise. Jiyong suppresses a snort. Then Seunghyun stands, shuffling around the easel before he produces a pad, yellowed with age. He offers it to him with a box of pencils. “I like the big paper now, so you can have this. I mean, if you want it.” Shrugging, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and _this_ Jiyong knows, the embarrassment, so he takes it.

“Thank you.”

Seunghyun moves away from him then, propping himself up against the pillows of his metal-framed twin size.

Jiyong flips through the notebook, which is mostly full. There are scribbles in Seunghyun’s new, blocky handwriting, sometimes a flower or a television set or a nurse’s uniform, none of them finished. There’s even a half-shaded, uneven face that says _Daesung_ under it in Daesung’s own script, face done in two separate colors. It makes Jiyong smile.

“Hey,” he says, “did you do this a long time ago? It looks like you guys had fun.”

No answer.

Seunghyun’s head is lolled against his shoulder, his breathing deep and even. The plain blue shirt with the hospice’s logo rises and falls with his chest, lashes shadowing the space below his eyes. Jiyong watches him sleep for a long time.

 

_( “You know what my nickname was in high school?”_

“Dumbass?”

“Funny,” Seunghyun says, indignance curling his voice even though they’re both grinning. “It was Infant.”

“Cause you can’t take care of yourself?”

“Cause I slept too much,” he mumbles, suddenly quiet as Hyunsuk and an assistant file in, toting laser pointers and laptops for today’s meeting. “All through my classes. Like this.” He props a hand against the table and rests his forehead against it, setting the file labeled ‘Big Show’ standing up.

“Don’t expect me to fill you in later,” Jiyong warns, uncapping his pen.

“I’ll just ask Youngbae.” Seunghyun quirks an eyebrow and Jiyong rolls his eyes as laughter threatens to roll out of his chest, thick and happy. “You’re so shitty to me.” )

 

“Do I really look like that?”

Jiyong’s pencil stills, a face shaded onto the paper.

“I need a fucking mirror,” Seunghyun grumbles over his shoulder. “And a haircut.”

Jiyong puts the pencil in the box and the box on the pad and the pad on the bed. He blinks twice, three times, and knots his fingers together, thumbs shaking. “Are you there?”

“Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know,” Jiyong whispers. “I don’t know how to find you anymore.” Then Seunghyun is there, hesitant even as Jiyong launches himself at him, too tired and needy to put up any kind of pretense, bitten-up fingers pressing into sallow skin. “I don’t know where you are.”

“I’m right here,” he says. “Your hair’s kind of wet.”

“I was outside,” he breathes, tucking his head under Seunghyun’s chin. He starts to laugh, then, soft and short and hiccupy, face warmed by Seunghyun’s neck, shoulder over his heart. “I was outside and it was snowing.”

“You didn’t have an umbrella?”

“If I had an umbrella I would’ve used it. God, you’re so stupid,” he says through the laughing that isn’t really laughing, “you’re so stupid, Seunghyun, you’re so dumb,” but Seunghyun’s fingers are shaking moisture out from the semi-damp strands, even though it gets on his face and his shirt and in his eyes.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

\---

What people assume Jiyong misses is the back-and-forth of “where the fuck are the forks” and “you left your socks in my room again”, maybe going to the same stores and partying at the same clubs or drinking with all their friends, basking in the glory that comes with being young, famous, and rich with your equally young, famous, and rich boyfriend.

But what he really misses are these things: the mornings he woke up to find the sun slanted enough that he could see the brown in Seunghyun’s eyes when he rolled over to look at him. When the banter died down and he could just sit there, bouncing ideas off of someone who listened more than they spoke. Making a joke and having Seunghyun laugh and say “I did that first,” because with Seunghyun he was always laughing, incredulous or amused or anything, everything. The way his head fit against that hollow between his neck and his shoulder. Wearing all of Seunghyun’s gaudy rings and smothering his grins while he watched him dig through the drawers for them later. Having someone around that made friends with him when he wasn’t G-Dragon, not a YG trainee, just dorky little Kwon Jiyong with the crooked front tooth and the bangs cut a little weird on purpose.

If someone asked him what he missed the most, he would tell them that. Or try to, because no rap or beat or speech or explanation could ever capture that, could ever capture this: Jiyong curled up against him, happiness so bright inside it almost hurt. It makes him turn his face into Seunghyun’s shirt. “I should get Daesung,” he says, and even the answering grunt he’d hated before is something to savor now.

 

They spend the rest of the day out in the snow, him and Seunghyun and Daesung, and they catch him up on everything that is happening with their group: Youngbae and Seungri’s solo activities, Daesung’s new miniseries. Jiyong goes over the new concept for 2NE1 and the female soloist they’re training for debut. Seunghyun asks about Gummy and Dara and Minji, asks if Seungri’s gotten over himself, plops a hand on Daesung’s knee and asks about him and Hyori. That gets no response until he says something about her hips; then Daesung is protesting and Seunghyun’s mouth turns up and Jiyong leans in to grin against his shoulder. Daesung shoots him a look, happy but apprehensive.

 

When night comes to blot the sky with dark they trudge inside. Daesung hovers at the doorway until Seunghyun pulls him into the bedroom. He finishes the picture, Jiyong with an arm slung around his neck, drawing in the parts he can’t quite get the details for. When he turns the pad around to show him, Daesung’s face splits into a smile. “Ah, I’m so ugly,” he protests.

“Our Daesung is the handsomest,” Seunghyun replies. “Don’t say that.”

“I won’t anymore, promise.”

Seunghyun slips the cover shut and shrugs, eyes dancing. “It’s not like I’ll know if you kept it or not.”

“Ah, hyung...”

He waves it off. “I’m allowed to joke about it, it’s happening to me. And hey, you’re allowed to laugh--”

Daesung crushes him into a hug, then, whispered words passing between them. Jiyong turns away when Daesung’s voice begins to shake. When the conversation dies down Daesung stands and leaves the room, eyes darting away from his, palm scrubbing at his face.

“I’ll be back next week,” Jiyong says. Seunghyun takes his hand. It’s big and sandpaper-rough in his own. “I’ll bring Youngbae.”

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.” The smile starts to slip from his face. “How many times?”

“A lot.”

He rubs Jiyong’s palm between his hands, fingers skimming along the bump of his knuckles. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry anyway.”

Jiyong squeezes his hand. “Apologize to me next week instead.”

“You should be working.”

“I’ll bring my stuff. You can help me out.”

Seunghyun’s face crumples, just a little. “I wish I could.”

“You will,” Jiyong insists, “next week, with me.”

Seunghyun stares at him for a moment. Then he leans in, mouth warm and firm against his. “Okay,” he breathes. “Next week.”

\---

Jiyong’s wearing rings today, a lot of them. Youngbae’s hat is on the table and he plays with the worn brim, setting it aside when he hears the footsteps behind him slow. Youngbae puts a hand on his shoulder as Seunghyun sits down and smiles.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Seunghyun.”

Jiyong slides the laptop from his legs. He puts it in its slipcase. “Hi,” he replies. “I’m Jiyong.” He puts the slipcase into the backpack, zips it up tight. “I’m here to visit you.”


End file.
